The Clockmaker's Wife
by Jesuslovesmarina
Summary: The Tenth Doctor, while traveling with Donna, accidentally encounters his old friend Reinette (Madame de Pompadour) when they crash into 18'th century France. Part 1 of 2: First Adventure. I do not own Doctor Who. Sad face. All the same, please review!
1. Chapter 1

The Clockmaker's Wife

The Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble accidently land in 18'th century France, running into Reinette, "Madame de Pompadour", only a few weeks before the Doctor's younger self is supposed to show up at the ball and finally save her from the clockwork droids.

This Doctor tells her, after she pesters him awhile, what is going on and why he's returned, struggling as he remembers her death and how he was too late to take her with him.

"Doctor, is what you're so afraid of telling me that I'm about to die? Do you come too late? You can tell me; I won't be angry!"

"No," he finally said, not looking at her. "But everyone dies, Reinette. Maybe not here, or now, but sometime."

"And what about you?" she asked immediately. "Are you truly an angel of God, that you never age; although, this particular day, I believe you have; and always come to rescue me, or are you one of us, that you be so terribly alone and allow my heart to be so bound with yours and never push me away?"

"I am like you. But I'm from another world, as you know. There, the people live to be thousands of years old—or they did. I am the last of my people."

"You never age, yet you step through the doors of my life as though stepping between the houses of a village, barely taking minutes. If you have so much time to spend, what are a few years on the slow path to you?"

"Time to remember how alone I am," he replied with a grim smile. "I dread the thought of it like a death sentence."

"And you have seen many people actually die," she said softly, looking at the ground, "Including myself, if I am not mistaken."

She raised her eyes to his, and met with so much pain she could hardly remain looking.

"You do not deny it," she whispered, not trusting her voice.

"In only a few weeks the events will start again," he swallowed a huge lump in his throat and tried to think as rationally as he could. "If the king would do without you for that long, I—I would spend a lifetime walking through doors with you."

"But how can I?" she cried. "They will think I am dead!"

"Listen," he grabbed both her hands in his. "This is MY vessel. Not the one the tapestries and the fireplace open up into. It looks small, but it's full of wonders. And it never misses a mark. If you come with me now, we could travel among the stars for days and months, and walk back through the door again merely seconds after we left."

"You can—sail on a sea of time, bidding it do as you will," Reinette exclaimed. "No wonder you are called a Time Lord."


	2. Chapter 2

"Oh, now you've really gone daft," Donna exclaimed the minute she saw Reinette. "Royalty, now? You've got expensive taste, all right, but she won't last two days!"

"Donna, you can say whatever you like, but you are not ruining this day for me, oh no!"

"Has she ever run a mile in her life?"

"Have you?"

"Oi!"

"Then stop it! Reinette's my new girlfriend—and believe me, it's been a long time!"

"I just hope you've thought this through, or you'll end up wishin' you had!"

"What, are you jealous?"

She gave him a look. "Oi! Where'd that bucket of Alberni slime go?"

"That's what I thought!" he grinned. "Reinette, this is Donna Noble. She's not my older sister, but she thinks she is."

"How old did you say I looked?" Donna shouted from searching the closet for slime to duck him with.

"She is—" Reinette replied, appearing a little breathless and taken aback, "—quite as shocking as you!"

"Aw, you'll be friends in time," the Doctor grinned at her, grabbing her shoulders and spinning her around to face the interior of the Tardis. "So wadda you think of my ship?"

"It's—astonishing!" she gaped, still taking in the fact that it was, of course, bigger on the inside. She took a couple of deep breaths, putting her hands on her hips and facing him with the attempt at looking stern. "And it looks like it could use a cleaning."

The Doctor gave her a look. "What? You got over that excitement quickly!"

She burst into a huge, embarrassed smile. "No! I'm only acting like a child—this is—absolutely glorious." Her eyes sparkled, and she looked so young.

He walked up next to her and put his arm around her waist. "The Tardis is supposed to clean herself, but I'll admit she's gotten a bit lazy. We both have. Maybe all we needed was a little queen, eh?"

She fingered his tie. "Am I that? Your little queen?"

"You soon will be," he smiled down at her, kissing her forehead. "That, or a mad clockmaker's wife, one of the two or both."

She smiled back, wondering what he meant by 'clockmaker'.

The Tardis suddenly pitched underneath of them and started rattling uncontrollably. A siren started going off somewhere in the back and several lights went out.

"Oh, no, not now!" The Doctor yelled frustratedly, helping Reinette to her feet and running to the console.

"What is that dreadful noise?" she exclaimed breathlessly, trying to hold onto the console beside him. Donna came running into the room.

"Doctor, what's happened?"

"System's jammed," he spat, trying to get the brake lever into the right position where it wouldn't slip and adjusting several other mechanisms, banging on one blaring alarm with his mallet. "Something's interfering with the ions in the hydraulics compartment. It's slowing us down to a stop—we'll get hurled out of the Time Vortex!"

"I don't know what you're saying!" Reinette shouted over the noise.

"It's all right; no one ever does!" Donna shouted back from across the console.

The Tardis rattled more and more furiously for a few seconds, then bumped into something with a huge jolt before going quiet. The Doctor raised an eyebrow, looking toward the door, then brushed past both women and gestured to them to follow.

"Allons-y!"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The huge grin on his face quickly faded when he threw open the door, only to be instantly drowned in a rush of red liquid. It gushed into the Tardis at an alarming rate, sweeping him and Donna and Reinette to the back of the console room, where they struggled in their surprise to remain afloat.

"Doctor!" they both screamed, and the Doctor, blowing to get it out of his nose, shouted at the Tardis. "Shut the door! Shut the door!"

The Tardis door slowly strained against the huge waves, but it finally closed and the rushing liquid ceased to pour inside. The three of them coughed and gagged, floundering awkwardly in a giant red pool too deep to touch the floor without going under. They couldn't even see the console—it was completely underwater—if it was water, that is.

"Is it blood?" Reinette questioned, looking around her and trying to suppress the horror that showed on her face anyway.

Donna went pale at the suggestion.

The Doctor calmly spat a stream of it out of his mouth before answering. "Naw, seawater!"

"With blood in it," Donna added.

"No, it's red seawater! No blood, no guts—blimey!" he made a face and shuddered, sticking his tongue out. "Heck of a lot of salt, though! That must be why we're not sinking—or at least, not Reinette in that dress of hers. Sorry, love, but in any other kind of water you'd be going under!"

"Whoever heard of sea water colored with red?" Reinette demanded, her bejeweled hands trying in vain to brush her mangled hair back from her face.

The Doctor, however, was busy. He swam to the edge of the Tardis, and, grabbing a hose that apparently wasn't needed for anything very important; he began to climb until he reached the ceiling. He then began tinkering with some type of apparatus attached to the top of one wall, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and working busily with it.

"What," Donna gasped, also trying to clear her thick red hair from her face, "we've landed on the bottom of the ocean?! I've always wondered why that never happened. I mean, the Earth is like, ninety-eight percent water, isn't it?"

"Seventy-one point four six percent!" the Doctor shouted down.

"Oh, you don't have to get all specific!" Donna huffed back at him. "How do we get out of here?!"

"Hold on! I've just gotta turn the drain system on," he replied, bracing himself and then diving from the roof down under the water to reach the console, splashing the two women all over again.

"Donna," Reinette said after he'd gone under, "—I may call you that, am I right?"

"Yeh," she replied breathlessly, "I'm just a temp. Call me whatever you want."

Reinette almost smiled. "I am afraid I do not understand half of the words you or the Doctor speak!"

Donna laughed, a little wildly because of the excitement.

"Donna," she continued, her voice quieter, "you do not suppose that there are—sea monsters and such—under our shoes right now?"

Donna looked down at the water and slowly raised her eyes to meet Reinette's. Just then, the Doctor resurfaced between them, spraying water everywhere as he shook it out of his hair. "You got that drain working?" Donna demanded of him, smiling in spite of herself at the sight of him. He looked like a wet, shaggy dog.

"Well, don't get impatient!" the Doctor said, almost a little embarrassed. "I can't hold my breath as long as you humans can, and it's hard to swim under salt water!"

"Oh, just let me help you," Donna rolled her eyes.

"Fine," the Doctor replied, still annoyed, and the two of them dove under, leaving Reinette at the surface to reconsider the situation she was in.

Now that she thought about it, it was rather frightening. The Doctor and Donna didn't seem to be concerned, but they were all three of them soaked to the skin and there didn't appear to be anything dry left in the vessel.

The Doctor resurfaced first, gasping and grinning at her. "Donna's got it," he said triumphantly. "What's wrong?" he asked, noticing her face.

"Doctor, you really ought to be concerned! The ship is underwater and we're all soaked to the skin. Won't we all catch our death of cold?"

"Oh, no, Reinette," he replied merrily, as Donna surfaced behind him. "Not in this century. Well! Not in this century—I don't even know when this century is! But not in the Tardis, oh no," he continued reassuringly. "Nobody gets sick in here. Well! Maybe a bit heartsick, but that's soon mended," he grinned as he swam over to her and took her hand under the water.

As he spoke, the water had begun to drain from a corner of the great room and they began to float downwards until they were standing on the floor again in only a few feet of red. For a second they were all laughing as they sloshed about, and had started splashing each other, but suddenly Reinette screamed.

They all stopped and turned to where she was pointing. A long tail was visible, translucent and blending with the color of the water, and it thrashed against the wall before moving at lightning speed across the console room, heading straight for the Doctor.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Ruuunnnnn!" was the only word that came out of the Doctor's mouth. All three of them dashed out of reach of the lightning-fast creature, long wriggling tail still sloshing in random, unpredictable directions across the console room. The water in the Tardis continued to dissipate, and more of the creature became visible.

It looked like a reddish-white colored eel, about three feet long, with huge, beady black eyes. As the water level dropped, it became more desperate and swam faster and faster in their direction. The Doctor made a dash for the door.

"Can't go out there!" Donna reminded him, trying to catch her breath. "We'll be flooded again!"

"Not this time, I changed it!" the Doctor shouted in reply, throwing the door open. Reinette gasped and both women braced for a watery impact, but the view outside the ship was only an innocent-looking starry night.

"Come on!" he shouted, and they both made a panicky run for it across the room, jumping through the doorframe just before the eel-thing caught up to them. As their feet hit the rocky ground, with Reinette's heeled shoes turning and landing her on the ground, hard, the creature followed them and came to an abrupt halt just outside the door, where the water ran out. It lay there on the ground, and they could see the dull smoothness of its skin in the dim light as its sides heaved for air.

The Doctor stared at it delightedly. "Oh, you are a beauty!" he grinned, running forward and picking it up cautiously. He showed it to the others as if it were a prize trophy from the World Cup. "See? Not dangerous, just a perfectly harmless—" there was a slight zapping sound and he almost dropped it. "Ow! –electric eel! Or as they call themselves on this planet, Niniwu." The Niniwu zapped him again. "Ow! Bad girl!" he spanked it on the broad end of its tail. "I wouldn't like to get zapped by your mother, that's for certain. Don't worry, I'll get you back in the water. Tardis, stop the drainage, will you?" He stepped back toward the ship, straddling the doorframe, and carefully set the creature back into the water, where it lay for about two seconds before racing off again.

"You speak to it as if it was a child!" Reinette exclaimed, astonished, as Donna helped her out of the shoes and to her feet.

"Well, it is a child," he replied, watching it swim. "It's not an animal, oh no. Not on this planet. "The Niniwu are people, yeh. They've got their own civilization, countless assets. They've been free and thriving for a hundred thousand years."

"How can you tell it's a she?" Donna remarked, arms folded across her chest as the wind picked up outside.

"Eh, you don't wanna know."

Suddenly a deep growl could be heard from behind them, seeming to shake the ground under which they were standing.

"What is it this time?!" Reinette exclaimed, stumbling back and grabbing the Doctor's arm.

In the direction of the sound, a gust of wind suddenly sprayed a shower of seawater on the three of them, and before their eyes, a huge, monstrous sea creature lunged upward and forward, roaring terribly. Its eyes were the same beady black as the eel's, but it looked a bit different, with long tentacles spread out and a gaping, filleted mouth dripping with seawater. Reinette gasped, unable to take her eyes off it. The Doctor and Donna exchanged glances.

"The mother?" Donna shouted to him.

He lifted his screwdriver and pointed it at the creature, taking a reading, then examined it quickly. He turned to Donna. "The father."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Fillets of dripping flesh nearly drowned out the threesome's vision of the monster, but even in the dim light the Tardis provided, they could make out his huge size. Above the blood-red water, he rose about thirty feet high, with his great black eyes alone being at least a yard in diameter. In a split second he crackled with electricity from his head down to the tip of his tail a hundred feet underwater, then roared at them.

Reinette had a death grip on the Doctor's left arm and Donna hid behind his right, as he tried to figure out what to do before they were drowned or zapped or pounded into who-knows-what.

The great Niniwu roared furiously, rearing up its head in preparation to move out of the water toward them.

"WAIT just a minute!" the Doctor suddenly yelled, trying to sound calm. The Niniwu slowed but did NOT appear as calm himself. He crackled with electricity a second time. "I know—you're upset about us, and you're scared—I know that—but if we can just talk about this, there won't be a problem—I really promise you…"

The Niniwu responded with a roar even louder than the one before, one that sprayed seawater and spattered cold slime in their faces.

"I don't think that's gonna work," Donna yelled over the noise, holding up a hand as slime flew at her. The Niniwu rose its huge head up into the air, exposing the long, sleek part of its body that looked much more similar to the baby. Opening his mouth, he suddenly came down with huge, jagged teeth on the roof of the Tardis, crunching out the lightbulb on top and splintering the wood. Huge crashes were heard from the inside and the Niniwu lifted the box clear off the ground, shaking it around with his mouth before setting it back down with a crash.

"Oh, nononono!" the Doctor yelled at him, cringing as he watched, "That's not helping, just listen to me!"

Beside him, Reinette was still unable to catch her breath, but she was thinking, hard. "Doctor," she gasped out, "All he wants is his child, does he not?"

"Yes, I just hope he doesn't destroy the Tardis before we get her to him!" he replied, without looking her way. Suddenly, she let go of his arm and dashed over to the Tardis.

"No, no, no, Reinette don't go in there it's not safe!" he yelled after her, hesitating before running after.

Reinette sloshed into the pool of red, now gone pitch black inside after the eel had damaged it, and plunged her small hands into the water, waiting. It took a moment, and her heart pounded with fear, but within seconds she felt the sleek body of the baby eel rubbing and nibbling against the shiny jewels she wore on her fingers. Grabbing it gently, she climbed out of the Tardis and threw the wriggling creature with all her might in the direction of its parent.

The Doctor and Donna ducked underneath and stared with their mouths open as the tiny Niniwu went flying through the air, whistling delightedly through its little mouth, and landed with a splash in the ocean behind its Dad.

"Wot!" the Doctor yelled, unable to believe his eyes. He couldn't stop grinning as he looked at the huge eel, then at Reinette, then back and forth again. Slowly, the large Niniwu turned around, hissing and crackling at them one more time, and descended slowly into the ocean. Then it roared upwards again, creating a huge splash, and they could see a tiny speck of the baby wrapped up in one of its mouth fillets before they both descended again.

"You did NOT!" Donna shouted delightedly, flinging herself at Reinette in a huge hug.

The Doctor was laughing so hard he could hardly remain standing, and he also grabbed her around the waist, which was good, because she was still totally breathless and shaking so badly she had fairly collapsed on them both.

"Reinette!" the Doctor exclaimed, "You are absolutely brilliant! I can't believe you did that!" His face changed to mock sternness as he shook a finger in her face. "Don't ever do that again; you'll get yourself killed." He smiled ear-to-ear again and held her so tightly he lifted her off the ground.

It took a moment, but they finally all caught their breath. "Everyone all right?" the Doctor asked. "Donna, you're fine?"

"It looks like ducking you with that Alberni slime came back on my own head!" Donna tried to sound angry, but was grinning in spite of herself as she wiped the gluey red liquid away from her face. "So what do we do now, go after 'em?"

The Doctor's grin faded. "Ehm, if I can get my ship repaired, yeah," he replied, viewing the damage with displeasure. He ran a hand through his hair, now covered in slime, and laughed as globs of it stuck to his skin. Showing it to Reinette, he noticed how pale her face was. "You all right, love?"

She didn't want to say no, but she couldn't really say yes, either. Without saying a word, she leaned her head against his chest, exhausted.

"You've had a busy day, haven't you?" he sympathized, stroking her back. "Come on. You can rest while I get the Tardis fixed. Want me to carry you?"

"If you don't mind," she smiled slightly, grateful for his caring for her.

He smiled back, and Donna watched as he picked her up and lovingly carried her into the Tardis.

She was frowning and told herself she had no idea why. It was wonderful that the Doctor finally had someone to love. The look on his face when he'd first brought Reinette into the Tardis had made her feel secretly happy inside.

But when he had called her brilliant—that was the moment when she felt a twinge of jealousy. No! Could she really be jealous? Of course not! The Doctor told all his friends they were brilliant! And Reinette really had saved all their lives while all the Doctor could think of doing (typical him) was talking. She'd have to tease him about that in a minute.

It doesn't hurt, she told herself. Reinette deserved the praise. She really was brilliant; practically a queen in her own time period. Donna was just a temp. She was just thick, crazy, lovable Donna, no matter what the Doctor told her because he was her best friend and was trying to egg her on.

Turning around she could see a huge sun rising, yellow like the one on Earth, but making beautiful arcs of red and gold light as it hit the surface of the water. It made her feel a little better, and she smiled. Sniffing, she squared her shoulders as she went into the now dimly-lit Tardis to tease the Doctor about how he talked too much.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"This is your room," the Doctor told Reinette as a door slid open by itself and he carried her inside. She looked at him and started laughing when she remembered they were both soaked and covered in red slime from head to foot.

"You act as if you do this every day," she commented, stroking his mussed hair.

"Well! Not every day," he winced at the question he'd heard many times. "Most days are fairly normal. Well, some days. Well, every now and then. There's been more of them since Donna came, I'll be honest." He gently laid her down on a soft, white chair that looked as if it had no support, yet somehow still held her up. "She's brilliant, Donna is. She's been good for me."

He looked her over, head to toe, and got an embarrassed look. "I'm sorry you got slimed. That doesn't usually happen on people's first day, but sometimes it can't be helped."

She smiled, but something about her eyes looked far away.

"What is it?" the Doctor knelt down, looking worried. "There's something besides being tired in your eyes, love."

She took a deep breath and jerked back to the present. "Oh, no. I was just thinking, Doctor, that's all. That little fish—you said it was a real child, just like people in our world—"

"Not our world, dear, your world," he corrected with a smile.

She smiled back, just a little. "My world. That monster—wasn't a monster, it was a father. A parent with a baby. Now, I don't understand that at all," she explained, turning to him, "but it is frightening to me. We accidently kidnapped his baby." her voice nearly broke on the last sentence and she turned away again.

The Doctor sat back on his heels, trying to figure out what was wrong. Then he face suddenly cleared with understanding. "Ohhhhh," he whispered at last, "That's right. You are a mother, aren't you?"

Her face crumpled and she turned to him, nodding, groping for his hand as the tears fell.

He put his arms around her shoulders and his chin on her head, holding her tightly as she sobbed. They both stank of the slime, but it didn't matter. He wanted to tell her, _yes, I understand, I was a father once_, but right now he could just hold her. Hold her and wish everything was okay.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"I still don't get," the Doctor grunted as he adjusted the ship's hydroconductors with a large wrenchlike thing (that he'd probably made himself) "why we landed here. We got pulled out of the Time Vortex, Donna—that sort of thing doesn't just happen."

Reinette was sleeping, and he and Donna had showered off the slime and set about fixing the damage done to the Tardis.

"Well, you say that, but if I remember correctly it's happened at least twice before since I started traveling with you, which wasn't that long ago, so it can't be too unusual," Donna commented, leaning against the console to watch him.

He stopped, thinking. "Has it really?"

She nodded, raising an eyebrow at him.

He shrugged. "Oh. I must not be payin' attention. Hard to keep track of these things, you know. You've got a good head for numbers, Donna."

She smiled but shrugged off the compliment. "So when are you gonna start teachin' me to fly the Tardis again?"

The Doctor grinned, adjusting another few knobs and levers to finish the repair job. "Why don't you give 'er a spin right now?"

"You mean it?" Donna jumped up excitedly. "She's all fixed up, then?"

"Good as she's gonna get on this planet," the Doctor grimaced, stepping back and surveying the ship critically. "We still need to find out what's causing the interference. Could be anything, really, but probably some sort of electrical bioproduction that's getting out of hand. That stuff's dangerous; I should really take a planetary reading," he added, more to himself.

Giddily, Donna circled around the console and took hold of the controls. She only knew what a few of them did, and even then, she really didn't understand all their technicalities. But because the Tardis was so old and worn out anyway, the Doctor had told her, most of the flying part was based on instinct now, rather than doing everything just 'right'.

"Oh!" the Doctor suddenly shouted by her ear, making her jump. "This really isn't good! Donna, look at the planetary reading!" he grabbed her by her arm and pulled her in front of the viewscreen.

"What's all the red?" she asked, confused by all the lines and strange symbols bouncing around.

"No, no, no, not the red—look at the center! No, little bit off the center! See that clump?"

She squinted. "To me it looks just like all the other stuff…"

"Naw, it's a really big clump; can't you see it?! Aw, don't bother; basically it just means the planet's going to explode."

"Wha—with us on it?!" Donna gasped in shock.

"Well, unless we _leave_!" he said, the last word as if it were a curse that would bring _shame _on them forever.

"Well, of all the flippin' things to find! Don't just stand there; tell me what to do!" she shouted.

"Alright, alright, alright!" he shouted back, rummaging through a floor compartment at top speed, and pulling out a jumbled wad of papers, which he busily examined through his spectacles. "Take us down underwater! Watch the speedometer—she can't hold up over 40 with all the interference!"

"Which one?!"

"The—the one with the thingy on it!"

"Oh, that's helpful!"

"And set the tracker beam to follow the electrodes in the pattern created by Daddy eel!"

"_What_ tracker beam? What the heck even _is_ a tracker beam?"

In the middle of their panicked moment, both of them suddenly hit the same gear and started to enjoy themselves in their adventure.

"I'll get the tracker beam," he shouted back again, now grinning ear-to-ear. "You just get us as deep as you can go, and I'll show you where to steer." He slammed down the tracking lever with a flourish. "Allons-y!"

"That's a stupid catch phrase; did I ever tell you that?" she grinned wickedly at him as she steered.

"Wha—!?" he pretended to look hurt, resetting the warp gauges as he did so.

A few moments later, the engines sped up and they began to move.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

They hit a bump and the whole ship jolted to the right, knocking the Doctor and Donna both off balance and causing Donna to lose her grip on the steering mechanisms. The Doctor scrambled across the floor to grab them as Reinette suddenly appeared in the room, clutching the doorframe to keep her balance but looking somewhat excited.

The Doctor's face lit up. "Ah, there she is! Ready to find out where these Niniwu come from?"

"Now, wait just a minute, Doctor," Donna protested, holding up her hands as the ship steadied, "I know the world's coming to an end and all, but you men _obviously_ have no idea what's important in life." She took Reinette's arm protectively and let her back into the Tardis interior. "We'll be five minutes, no more."

The Doctor rolled his eyes as Reinette smiled and followed her. "Five minutes; I'll hold you to that. Five minutes! My foot! I've never known a woman to take five minutes to get dressed—unless maybe it was Martha—didn't really pay much attention to her…"

More like fifteen minutes later (still impressive), the two emerged with Reinette dressed just a mite differently than she had when she came aboard the Tardis. She still wore a skirt (she would have been far too uncomfortable in khaki pants like Donna wore), but it was dark and simple and so was her yellow blouse. Most of her jewelry was gone, too, and her hair was braided much more simply.

The Doctor didn't even notice the nervousness in her stance as she wondered what a man would think of her in such unimpressive clothing—much like a peasant's! She nearly shuddered at the thought. Her Doctor—HER Doctor—was richer than a king, and a dozen times more powerful. Surely he would be disgusted.

For a second he glanced at her, then tried to remain focused on manipulating the various instruments on the Tardis console, but he kept looking back up, his face hopelessly unreadable. Flipping one more lever without even looking at it, he suddenly crossed the room in four huge strides and took her in his arms, planting a solid kiss on her mouth without saying a word.

Donna, watching this, made a series of awkward and hilarious faces; hands flapping all over with glee combined with 'mercy sakes, what have these people come to?!'

"H—how bad is it?" Reinette brought herself to say after he'd unlocked their lips.

"You look beautiful," he told her seriously.

"Are you sure?" her brow puckered.

His brown eyes twinkled his response. "Ready for your first adventure?"

She wanted to say, "Haven't we already had several?" but all she could manage was a choked, "Of course!" _Yet,_ she thought that perhaps, _maybe_ she loved it, all the same!

The Doctor sprinted backwards, ushering Donna by her shoulders toward the door of the Tardis as he did so. Reinette followed him, and so it was the threesome that stood shoulder to shoulder as the Doctor opened the door with all the airs of unveiling a great masterpiece.

And sure enough, far more than that lay spread before their eyes.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

**(Yes, electric eels actually do breathe air! I did my research (: sorry this chapter is so short. More coming soon.)**

Niniwu had always been fierce creatures. Fierce and beautiful, from before their time of power to the extent of it, the pinnacle they'd reached. But it was time for that to fall, because of evil, as it always was. Nothing could last forever; no empire, no rule, no mortal reign. However immortal it may appear to the masses.

In the beginning they'd hailed the Black One as beloved President, or in their words, Romanori. The prince of the Niniwu race, he was perfection in every sense of the word. He was over a hundred feet tall, possessing the fat and rippling bulk so prized in their ever-growing culture. He sang beautifully and could bring schools of Niniwu young, old, male, and female to weepy tears with his songs and whistling. Through these songs, he spread his message, which at first seemed bright and promising…

A young male crept through a net of hard coral, which grew thick and menacing as it snaked around the edges of the underwater city. His skin had once been a bright green, but over the last few years it had darkened to a sickly forest-color streaked with traces of dark orange. Every so many seconds, his body convulsed with electric shocks he could no longer voluntarily control, but still he pressed his nose through the netting, determined to find a way through.

Behind him the city glowed in a way that could be outwardly perceived as welcoming. The luminous electric lights flashed and twinkled and tubes of sticky, moldable plastic yelt were woven in intricate patterns of large and small tubing to create a beautiful network of channels and buildings and rooms, all connected to each other, all lighting up as the eels inside of them raced past, going about their business.

The young Niniwu had once been quite fond of the city he'd grown up in.

Not anymore.

Now it was the death trap he was struggling for his life to escape.

Nothing set him apart or made him any better than the thousands of his people still trapped inside, working for their very lives, locked into the Channel or the Generator until they dropped to the bottom with exhaustion and were taken up by the razor-sharp fan blades. But he was out here, and they were in there. He couldn't think about them anymore. And, truth be known, he knew he would die anyway if he got out. The surface of the ocean was miles upward and he would suffocate long before he could get up there for a breath.

With one last, wrenching twist of his tail, he wrought himself free from the netting, feeling the hard coral scrape at his skin. White blood seeped out of the scratches and dripped down his short mouth fillets as his tail seized and shocked again, more violently this time.

He was free.

Suddenly—he blinked his dazed, sleepy eyes once, twice to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. He still wasn't sure even though what he saw hadn't changed. A large box of blue, with strange markings and made of the most foreign-looking material he'd ever laid eyes on, floated down toward him and off to his left. It ricocheted once off one of the coral pieces, causing little bits to break off, but lifted from an unseen power and soared up and around, only to knock itself into another side of the net. It almost looked as if it was trying to bust through the coral, but little did it—or whoever was inside it—know that that was impossible. The only way in was the way he'd just come out, and that box would never make it through that way.

But—maybe, just maybe that box was going to the surface. Maybe he'd survive if it was. Maybe he could latch onto it—letting out a squeal of pain in spite of himself, the green-colored Niniwu heaved himself up and struggled to swim in the direction of the box, tail shocking in spasms every few heartbeats. He couldn't even manage to swim in a straight line, and felt his already blurred vision begin to cloud even more with the red-gold light from the sunrise above the surface, but he kept going even through darkness until he passed out, just a few meters away from what he didn't realize was the Tardis protective shield.


End file.
